Take a look at that verso.

Our blog post this week is brought to you by intern Krista!  Boy, do we love our interns.

Aanii, bonjour, ciao. Hello! For all of you who can’t wait to see Shock of the New this Saturday, come prepared. Bill Payne, Dean of the School of Fine Arts at UMD, will be discussing the episode, “The View From the Edge.” If you like abstract expressionism or artist’s like de Kooning and Pollock, you won’t want to miss this one!

Now for the only reason you come to our lovely blog, the much anticipated vocab word of the week!

ver•so/ˈvərsō/
Noun: A left-hand page of an open book, or the back of a loose document; The reverse of something such as a coin or painting.

I wish I could tell you why scholars don’t just use the words “front” and “back” but I can’t give a great reason.

Anywho, I bet most of you are probably wondering what is so interesting about the back of painting. It’s so much more than a stretcher and a canvas; each painting has a personality because of the artist and that goes for the back as well.

Wildly famous artists like Vincent Van Gogh have used the back of a painting as another canvas. His Garden with Sunflowers, 1887, is one example, although, it was rare for van Gogh to do this.



Here is an example of a painting by Walt Kuhn that was found to have another painting on the back:
You can read about this painting here.

Apples in a Wooden Bowl